2015’s Cruel Climate Count Continues as NASA Shows July Was Hottest On Record

Andrew Freeman is right. It’s been a cruel, cruel summer. Hothouse mass casualty events, spurred by a ridiculous accumulation of heat trapping gasses in the Earth atmosphere, have spanned the Northern Hemisphere. The result has been thousands of lives lost and the hospitalization of tens of thousands more as global temperatures rocketed to levels not seen in probably 100,000 years (related — Hothouse Mass Casualties Strike Egypt).

In the JMA graph, beginning in 1890, you can plainly see the new July record is well above the +0.67 C per Century warming trend line of the last 125 years. A new high that leaves the 1998 super El Nino year in the dust.

For JMA, that’s 0.72 C above the 20th Century average and about 1 C above 1890. For NASA, global temperatures also hit a similarly hot range. July of 2015 was 0.75 C above their 20th Century base line — putting it at about 0.95 C hotter than 1880s values when annual record keeping began. Now we only wait on NOAA’s report coming out in a few days for a final confirmation of this obscene July heat.

2015 On Track For Hottest Year By a Wide Margin

Focusing in on the NASA measure, we find that January through July temperatures are setting a course for a record shattering 2015. Overall, global temperatures during that seven month period were 0.8 C above NASA’s 20th Century benchmark and about 1 C above 1880s values. A level of heat that, if it were simply maintained, would beat out previous record hot year, 2014, by a substantial margin (0.07 C).

To the layman, these may seem like small numbers except when one considers that just 3.5 C of cooling from Holocene climates means the start of a new ice age. In just 135 years we’ve hit 30 percent of the difference between the Holocene and an ice age — but on the side of hot. Moreover, an annual temperature climb of 0.07 C equals 7 degrees Celsius warming if maintained for one Century. So a one year jump in that range is a pretty wide margin, especially when we consider that we’re now experiencing back-to-back hottest years on record.

El Nino + Climate Change In the NASA Graphic

(NASA’s July distribution of hot and cold temperature anomalies shows a world that’s tipping more and more toward climate extremes. Image source: NASA GISS.)

Geospatially, the representation of hot and cold temperature extremes in the NASA map hints at an absolute mess for July weather patterns. While abnormal and extreme warmth dominated the East Siberian, Chukchi, and Beaufort airs, a plug of below average temperatures hovered over the Laptev. Two substantial chimneys of heat extended into the Arctic — one exploding up from the Hot Blob in the Pacific and another stretching diagonally over the Lake Baikal region of Russia (Related: The Dry Land Burned Like Grass). Most of Western Europe baked while the Yamal region cooled. In the North Atlantic the Climate Change signature and storm generating cool pool maintained — gearing up to throw a few wicked cyclones at the British Isles in the midst of, what should be placid, summer.

And all across the equatorial region anomalous heat built — pushing monthly temperatures from 1-4 degrees Celsius above average in some of the typically hottest regions of the world. In this analysis we must pause for a moment to point out the awesome and terrible wave of heat building up from the Eastern Equatorial Pacific, telegraphing through the Hot Blobs off the North American West Coast and extending on up through the Bering Sea. A teleconnection feature that must fall if California is to have any hope of receiving a drought busting set of storms this Winter — monster El Nino or no.

The mid-to-equatorial latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere were also abnormally warm with few regions showing any departure into cooler than ‘normal’ in this zone. Meanwhile, the Southern Polar Region was a mess of hot ridges and cold troughs indicative of a very wavy Jet Stream pattern for the zone. In particular, a ridge blazing south through the Weddell Sea set off some much warmer than normal readings for Coats Land and the Ronne Ice Shelf.

(Zonal temperature anomalies for July show a clear signature of El Nino and a climate change related heat sink in the Southern Ocean. Image source: NASA GISS.)

In the NASA zonal map, we can clearly see the signature of El Nino. Equatorial temperatures are the hottest in the measure pushing to +1.3 degrees Celsius above average over the world’s belt-line. To the north, heat gradually tapered off — still maintaining near +1 C through the 40 degree line before dipping down to around +0.8 to +0.3 C in the 50s, 60s, and 70s and then rising again to around +0.7 C at the pole.

To the south, anomalies rapidly plunged throughout most zones — dipping to +0.35 C in the range of the furious fifties (50 degrees South Latitude). In the oceanic heat sink region where fresh and icy water met the warmer, saltier waters of the Southern Ocean, heat uptake by that ocean-atmosphere interface hit an extreme level as negative zonal anomalies spiked to -1.4 C in the range of 65 South Latitude. This ocean heat uptake and related atmospheric cooling is associated with a global warming related fresh water outflow due to Antarctic glacial melt — the Southern Hemisphere version of the North Atlantic cool pool. Zonal temperatures swing again higher, hitting +0.6 C at the land glacier edge in the region between 70 and 80 South, before dipping to around -0.7 C in the Antarctic interior near 90 South.

Conditions in Context

During the record hot July of 2015 temperature and weather hit new extremes. Variation between hot and cold temperatures became greater over many regions of the globe as hot and cool pools grew in prominence and related weather influence. Glacial melt and ocean current change related cool pools dominated the North Atlantic and a band near 70 South in the Southern Ocean. Meanwhile, extreme equatorial heat associated with El Nino developed teleconnections with high amplitude ridges — especially with the Hot Blob related Ridiculously Resilient Ridge over the Northeastern Pacific.

In addition, a synergy developed between high ocean temperatures, related high humidity, and a number of dangerous heatwaves. Near record and record hot waters in the regions of India, Pakistan, and Japan synergistically enabled deadly, mass-casualty producing heatwaves in those regions. This is due to the fact that hot waters enable higher wet bulb temperatures over land — pushing wet bulbs, at times, close to the human survival limit of 35 C.

With Global temperatures now at 1 C above 1880s levels we begin to witness hints of what a human-forced hothouse may look like. But what we see now are only the early, easy outliers.

Next bit may be something you alerted me to, DT. Wet bulbs for the US South. Notably both the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California are featuring 30-32 C sea surface temperatures. That’s some heat/moisture potential for trouble there.

Predicted heat indexes in the Dangerous range of 110 to 115 + for the US Southeast over a broad region by Friday. Given those SSTs in the Gulf, this could get worse. Something to keep an eye on.

You bet, Robert. A lot of people, in quite a few places, will get a ‘hot compress’ when they are already running a high fever.
You’re staying in front of the curves while MSM chases ambulances and getting there too late.
Thanks for that.

Robert is always light years ahead of MSM. The past two days I’ve been hearing on the “news” lots of talk about a “Godzilla El Niño” taking shape. A little late to the party, as we’ve been staying informed on the subject all along. Keep up the great work, Robert! You’ve really been producing a cornucopia of fantastic posts, and helping us stay well informed.

Jacob

Really paints a sobering picture. Yes it sounds an alarm. Which brings to mind that dangerous marginalization the “alarmist” There is a reason miners took canary’s into coal mines. Funny twist on that one. ; )

Kevin Jones

Cryosphere Today is indicating a -279,000 sq km below baseline sea ice area year-to-date for 8/13/15. You all know: that place down there that is gaining ice so as to cancel losses up there. C’mon ‘Tony’ ‘Watts’. Help us out here!

Only the Southern Ocean sea ice bounce is due to glacial melt from the continent…

Good catch, Kevin. We’ve had some amazing high amplitude waves near the sea ice and the ridges have done their damage. That and 20-25 foot waves running directly at the ice due to storm force north to south flows. It’s a mess down there.

Saw this other break earlier today. The 2013/2014 bounce is also about gone in the area measure and we still have more than a month of melt left. Possibly extended due to heat transport on the Pacific side (related El Nino teleconnection).

1997 happened toward the end of the last positive PDO and we are currently beginning another positive PDO and we are already this hot. What in the crystal climate ball do you see happening going forward in regards to the PDO and heat?

we_are_toast

I love this:
“To the layman, these may seem like small numbers except when one considers that just 3.5 C of cooling from Holocene climates means the start of a new ice age. In just 135 years we’ve hit 30 percent of the difference between the Holocene and an ice age — but on the side of hot. ”

I’ve always wondered how to reach the lay person with the seriousness of our situation. You can talk about it’s the hottest it’s been in thousands of years, or sea levels might rise a foot and a half in the next 50 years, but it just doesn’t sound serious. But if you say if we were 3 1/2C lower than we were in 1880, there would soon be a half mile of ice over New York City and we’re already 1C above that 1880 average and we’re climbing fast, I think that might get their attention.

And when is NASA going to wake up and quit announcing, in JANUARY, that we just had the hottest year on record?! Why in the world does NASA need to comply with the arbitrary calendar year? Every August NASA needs to hold a big press conference and announce the average temperature for the previous 12 months while people are sweating in their armchairs and giant heatwaves are sweeping the Northern Hemisphere.

Kevin Jones

I have found the only effective way to respond to people who say they can’t understand why 1 or 2ºC is such a big deal is to ask them how they would feel if they were running a 3.6ºF fever and how long they think they could survive.

climatehawk1

James Burton

” There seem to be two competing philosophies at work within the throbbing brain of the Empire: the environmentally hostile, infinite growth-oriented, natalistic view of economists, and the eco-friendly, Malthusian, population-control view of ecologists.”
Dimitry Orlov sums things up nicely and in few words. I come with a strong background in technology from my youth, and economics in my later years, I have seldom seen such a short sighted course than the one the world’s economies are on right now. All the drivers are making the C02 rise, and the Global Warming it causes increase. Infinite growth economics is a dead end, but the leaders refuse to change course! Time for the passengers to revolt and grab the wheel?

Doug

Thought you would be interested in this article Robert from Climate Central. It has a map of the U.S. that shows where in the Country and when, will experience “Danger Days” There’s a few surprises on there at least for me, ie. Charleston, W.V. projected to have more of these days than anywhere else in the U.S.

redskylite

Jack Arnold

So… these New Jersey sized ice chunks that are popping off the arctic and floating out to sea; does this normally happen in the late ice melt season? This is my first year watching things like climate reanalyzer which are showing this.

redskylite

The ARGO program is performing a fine job giving valuable data on the top 2000 meter layer of our oceans. Pleased to read a new sturdy float for the Arctic has been developed and is about to be launched…

Colorado Bob

Head of Federal Baikal-Angara basin management Mikhail Voronov warned of long-term ecological damage to the lake. ‘Baikal’s cleaning capability is dramatically low, due to a small flow of water. No spring floods on Baikal for already 19 years and it’s scary,’ he said.

Andy in SD

Susceptibility to food shock (decimated yields of a crop in a region) has become endemic since the 97/98 El Nino (in the 2000’s). When you read this report from the UK on food security, it becomes apparent we’ve actually been fortunate. We’ve suffered a reduction in either corn, soy, wheat,rice or other staples regionally. That has been the luck of the draw. As we get ready to crank the climate shift up a notch potentially with another El Nino, that chances of concurrent reductions in multiple locales becomes a stronger possibility. What we have seen with conflict, mass migration and civil unrest may multiply in such occurrences.

Colorado Bob

For as long as Americans have voted and pundits have bloviated, each presidential election cycle has seemed The Most Important in All History.

Next year, though, may truly – actually, seriously – be different, if climate scientists are right. The next candidate Americans send to the Oval Office, experts say, may also be the very last who can avert catastrophe from climate change.

“It is urgent and the timeframe is critical and it has to be right now,” says Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center at Georgetown Law. “We can’t lose another four years, much less eight years.”

Kevin Jones

Dear Colorado: Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig believes strongly this climate emergency. He believes we must rise up to return the Republic to We the People in order to deal with it. He is attempting to run on a mandate to do just this and only this, then hand the reins to his VP. Outrageous, I know…..but these are outrageous times. (his thinking is a vote for him could get Bernie or Warren, whomever the convention decides, in.)

Colorado Bob

It’s brown, smells like rotten eggs and is a breeding ground for fleas. Welcome to the stinky Caribbean, choked by record amounts of seaweed.

Huge quantities of brown sargassum seaweed are burying the usually pristine beaches and coves of the Caribbean, The Associated Press reports. Tourists have canceled trips, and some lawmakers in Tobago have reportedly called the seaweed a “natural disaster.”

Sargassum grows and floats in an area of the Atlantic called the Sargasso Sea. Sargassum mats are nurseries for sea turtles, and provide habitats for many marine creatures, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

When the seaweed washes ashore, the little creatures living inside it die, creating a putrid stink. Sand fleas breed in the piles, some of which are up to 10 feet tall.

It’s unclear why there’s so much sargassum this year. Researchers have suggested that rising ocean temperatures and increased fertilizer runoff may be factors.

utoutback

Colorado Bob

Nearly 1 million people in Guatemala are struggling to feed themselves as poor rainfall has led to drought and shrunken harvests, worsening hunger among the poor, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said.

Linked to the El Nino weather phenomenon, this year’s drought has been very hard on subsistence farmers living in Central America’s dry corridor that runs through parts of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.

“In Guatemala, 170,000 families, approximately 900,000 people, have no food reserves left. This is the third consecutive year they have been hit by drought,” Diego Recalde, head of the FAO in Guatemala, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Andy in SD

Colorado Bob

We know now that America’s East and Gulf Coasts will be flooding more in upcoming years because of climate change. But how much? And how do you show that in a way that people can understand?

That’s what we’re trying to do, with Vanilla Ice, in this data visualization app. We use data from this report, which may carry greater resonance on the 10th anniversary of the Katrina disaster and just weeks after President Barack Obama’s new initiative on climate change. Here’s how much more often these American cities will be flooded.

Wait, Vanilla Ice? We’re using sound and video to illustrate the projected floods.

Think of the number of tidal floods as the tempo of a song, say Vanilla Ice’s rap single “Ice Ice Baby.” The number of floods that we experience today might look normal, and this is represented by “Ice Ice Baby” played at its normal tempo. Now try this: for every increase of 10 floods in a year, speed up the song by one second. How fast will the song be when the number of floods hit 388 a year (Washington DC in 2045)?

Colorado Bob

During this first half of July temperatures have been very high in the area north of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, perhaps not as widespread as in 2011 and 2012, but remarkable nonetheless. It’s the average sea level pressure that really stands out, though. Except for 2011 no year comes close to the intensity and size of the high pressure area covering Greenland and almost all of the Arctic Ocean. This means that the relatively high temperatures were accompanied by a solar bombardment in those areas where ice is supposed to be thickest.

appaling

There has been several heat waves recently with sever consequences. India with several thousands dead, Pakistan with close to a thousand dead, and Tokyo with tens of thousands hospitalized.

However, I have been unable to find any meaningful statistics of the heat wave in the Iraq/Iran, with temperatures over 50°C and wet bulb temperature of 32°C (33?). This approaches the limit of human (and mammal) survivability. Is the lack of reporting due to that nothing happened, or the statistics are unreliable or that the news networks aren’t interested because it is Iraq/Iran?

Does anybody have any more info this? I could only find that there were 70+ casualties in Egypt.

Colorado Bob

Widespread species are at just as high risk of being wiped out as rare ones after global mass extinction events, says new research by UK scientists.

There have been five mass extinction events in the Earth’s history, including climate change caused by volcanoes and an asteroid hit that wiped out the dinosaurs.

In general, geographically widespread animals are less likely to become extinct than animals with smaller geographic ranges, offering insurance against regional environmental catastrophes.

However, a study published in Nature Communications has found this insurance is rendered useless during global mass extinction events, and that widely distributed animals are just as likely to suffer extinction as those that are less widespread.

Colorado Bob

Rainfall in Spain, central France and northern Italy was less than 20 percent of normal in the 30 days through July 29, WorldAgWeather data show. Over that same period, temperatures were 4 degrees to 6 degrees Celsius (7.2-10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than usual. Spain and Italy had their hottest July ever. The first three weeks of last month were the warmest on record in eastern France, where Esprit says some farmers will see output drop as much as 50 percent.” target=”_blank”>Link

Rainfall in Spain, central France and northern Italy was less than 20 percent of normal in the 30 days through July 29, WorldAgWeather data show. Over that same period, temperatures were 4 degrees to 6 degrees Celsius (7.2-10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than usual. Spain and Italy had their hottest July ever. The first three weeks of last month were the warmest on record in eastern France, where Esprit says some farmers will see output drop as much as 50 percent.

Colorado Bob

Eric Thurston

The second largest dead zone in the world is located in the Gulf of Mexico.

Excessive use of chemical fertilizers by industrial agriculture in the US is one of the leading causes of the dead zone. The fertilizers, which contain phosphorous and nitrogen, generate an increase in algae, which then starves other marine life of oxygen in the water.

The Gulf of Mexico dead zone, which is the most closely studied human-caused coastal dead zone, was caused not only by massive amounts of the aforementioned chemicals, but also by other sources of nitrogen from animal feed, sewage treatment plants and urban runoff from the Mississippi River flowing into the Gulf. It has grown dramatically in recent years.”

Extreme rainfall events generate the nutrient pulses. Warming adds to the problem by creating an environment in which bacteria/algae is favored to bloom. Added heat preconditions the water by lowering the available oxygen. So the hits come from many sources, but warming is the underlying amplifier.

Glad to see this lawsuit go out. But we need to be careful to show that EPA has a critical role to play. That we need EPA strengthened and encouraged to do its job.

Puchkov’s officials said on Friday that 107 fires are ‘raging in the Siberian Federal District. They cover an area of 149,000 hectares ………………… Puchkov told journalists in Krasnoyarsk that all wildfires would be extinguished in two and a half days.

It’s an amazing tool. Really a public service to the whole world. If I were living in India or Pakistan or Tibet or the Kashmir I’d be using it to monitor those glacial dams and melt lakes. The governments there should have up stream spotters and flood horn warning systems for the communities downstream.

I love this article. It’s exactly the kind of outrage we need. Without fossil fuel dependence, we wouldn’t be seeing these fires. And they’ll only get worse if we keep burning. There’s just too large a carbon store up there for it not to.

redskylite

Sad to see sea lion seizures due to toxic blooms …… accelerated by us with agricultural runoff and warming.

“‘I’ve always been a total believer in climate change, and I try not to be an alarmist, because it’s not good for anyone,’ says Dutkiewicz, who is the paper’s lead author. ‘But I was actually quite shocked by the results. The fact that there are so many different possible changes, that different phytoplankton respond differently, means there might be some quite traumatic changes in the communities over the course of the 21st century.'”

Yes, all is chemistry — in balance, or other wise: blood chemistry, atmospheric chemistry. All the way to too many chemicals.
Earth, and nature, functioned just fine with it’s chemical balanced inventory. We humans have injected a gross number, and amount, of chemicals to this biosphere which our survival depends upon.
Now, all is out of balance and is increasingly toxic to all.

Colorado Bob

Kevin Jones

It is rare indeed that our National Weather Service gives me no satisfaction. But at the moment Cheshire Co. NH is under a wholly unforecasted severe t-storm warning. dtlange: Smoke gets in my skies, then lightening in my eyes?

“Smoke gets in my skies, then lightening in my eyes?”
Sounds like a good mournful ballad, Kevin.

– And, “wholly unforecasted”, that occurs with increasing frequency these days. There are so many systems out of balance that the usual models are of little use for anything than a wild guess (An overstatement but meaningful).

utoutback

CB
If you decide to move on I can’t blame you. The comments and links seem to be adding up. Reports from all quarters as we slide further into this morass. Meanwhile, I check the MSM and find next to nothing about this growing crisis.
Still, you would be missed by us here at RS.
And who is going to provide us with the great music clips!
Although I haven’t met you anywhere but here, you are a brother.Be well.
UToutback

Andy in SD

labmonkey2

Agreed. Hit 105.3 (not the radio station) in the shade on my front porch in Santee w/ RH at 16%. My AC was rockin’.
Had to make a trip to Home Depot. Chatted with the helper in plumbing – they sold out of the portable AC units they had in stock, and he just sold 3 window units in the last hour.

Wildfires in Oregon and Washington exploded with the help of scattered lightning strikes and 40 mph winds Friday night, especially in the John Day area of eastern Oregon and the dry Cascade foothills around Chelan in north-central Washington.

The human-caused Countyline 2 fire, which is burning on the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs reservation northwest of Madras, is now Oregon’s largest at 55,000 acres. It grew 22,000 acres overnight, consuming sagebrush and timber, and destroying houses and outbuildings. It closed part of U.S. 26, which reopened late Saturday morning.

redskylite

Thanks for advising the availability of this new book, looks like an interesting and worthwhile read, and is availbale for delivery at the end of October in New Zealand. Think I’ll pre-order a copy now . ..

Apneaman

“Currently my main research focus is on the link between mass extinctions and the eruptions of large igneous provinces, particularly between the Emeishan Province in the Middle Permian extinction and Central Atlantic Magamatic Province and the end-Triassic mass extinction. In addition, my long-running interest in the end-Permian mass extinction is focussed on the deep ocean records of Japan.”

Wow it really does drive climate change home here in the Bay Area, when right now I’m breathing in all the charred remains of wild-fire destroyed vegetation and animals. It’s an excellent time to have a talk with someone about climate change when their breathing smoke like this. To see how the smoke is spreading across California go to: https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/CMeOwpcWwAA6Zqp.mp4

Here’s the 0816 US AirNow loop for combined PM (smoke, emissions & traffic dust) & O3 for Calif.
The warmer the color the more unhealthy.
I’ve been following these for years. Everyone in the US should.

Ouse M.D.

European rivers running extremely low- mentioned are Danube and the Elbe.
What the article fails to mention is what about all the nuclear reactors these waters serve as a coolant for…
IAEA also being dead silent on this matter- and I guess it’s not just Europe that’s affected by only knee- deep water levels at places.

“all the nuclear reactors these waters serve as a coolant for…” That’s right, one more ‘unmentionable’ mass casualty event that can result fossil fuel induced climate change.
Very important. So is the ‘silence’ surrounding obvious threats.

Andy in SD

Andy in SD

I was going over the Sistema Cantareira numbers this morning and 2 line items caught my eye (thanks to Google translate).

1) The first technical reserve came into operation on 05/16/2014 and added 182.5 billion liters to the system – 18.5 % increase

2) The second technical reserves came into operation on 10/24/2014 and added another 105 billion liters to the system – 10.7 % increase

So since 5/16/2014 a 29.2% increase in reserves was added. One years later on 5/5/2015 the system was at 8.2%. Does anyone else see a problem here?

Currently they are reporting 13.2% from the bottom. This is done as the previous reporting of reserves would be indicating a very low number, so they simply report something else that shows a better number. They can not report usable reserves above dead pool as that stands at -12.2% (a deficit). Of that 13.2% gross volume, how much is really usable? That is not reported so I did some digging as best as I could.

If you take all of the reservoirs into account, they contain 535.19 million cubic meters from a max value of 1,869.42. This is 28.62% overall for the region. However, one can’t simply move water around between the sections. 2* is not terrifying, it is very bad. But if you start to peel away the surface values and get some specifics….

Systema Cantareira is at 182.5 out of 982.0, (18%)

Jaguari (the main section of Cantareira) is at 52.0 out of 808.0 (6%). Jaguari represents 82% of the system and sits at 6%.

Thus the bulk of Cantareira which is reported is scattered around small reserves and not in the main branch (Jaguari). Jaguari is below critical at ~6%.

Andy in SD

That is the only chance they have of making it to the rainy season. This was announced in Feb / March that water would be dropped to 2 days a week with reduced pressure.

Even so, it is running dry.

And once you factor in the draw downs from other sources, it paints a very grim picture. Unless they get some miracle out of the rainy season this winter, they’re toast. And if they get a miracle? Well that just kicks the can down the road.

Andy in SD

As we draw down and rely on ground water (ie: Central Valley) we pump up a higher salinity water. As it does not run off, deposition of salts occur. Thereby we render the soil less hospitable to agriculture over time. As droughts increase or continue, we destroy our arable land.

Andy in SD

Air pollution killing 4000 in China a day, US study finds
Air pollution is responsible for 1.6 million deaths in China each year, according to a new study from nonprofit Berkeley Earth. For 38 percent of the population, the average pollution level across the entire four-month period was deemed as unhealthy.

Andy in SD

If you look at this satellite shot, you’ll notice that Lake Mead has depleted to the point where there are 2 separate bodies of water connected with some Colorado River. So if the level / flow drops enough, those 2 sections will become 2 distinct bodies of water. Thus a section will not really be part of Lake Mead.

Trying to locate elevation / topographic data on the land beneath the lake to determine at what water level this would occur. This would imply that the reported volume is in fact not correct, but rather inflated.

redskylite

“At a rate of just a couple of centimeters a year, data on the sinking ground of Phoenix might seem insignificant. However, if this continues for several years and on long distances, structures like the Central Arizona Project (CAP) canals, water and gas mains, utility lines, storage drains and sewers will most likely be affected, further damaging office buildings and homes.

redskylite

The Real News discussion on Abrupt Climate Change with a two-member panel, Dahr Jamail and Guy McPherson. Dahr Jamail is a staff reporter with TruthOut. He currently focuses on the environment and climate change. And Guy McPherson is Professor Emeritus of conservation biology at the University of Arizona. Thank you both for joining us today.

redskylite

labmonkey2

Thank You for posting this as it’s exactly what I’ve been witnessing in watching the collective data, and the weather swings associated with that data, impact our planet.
And as usual, we’re a day late and way short of fixing this.
As was stated – “Brace for Impact”

Andy in SD

I would recommend to Watts et al that they should limit their global reporting to southern Greenland or northern Quebec and simply pretend that those 2 small locations are representative of the entire globe.

If they don;t take this suggestion, they need to report on tiny fractions of the earth and time and pretend those represent the entirety….oh wait… they do that already…

redskylite

Very strong words from a scientist (Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Coordinating Lead Author of section on ‘The Ocean’ within the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report. Somehow I trust the words of a scientist a lot more than I do a politician.

“We need to wake up to the idea that business as usual, even clever taxation schemes, will not act fast enough to reduce global emissions. This is a global emergency, which requires us to decarbonise within the next 20 years, or face temperatures that will eliminate ecosystems like coral reefs, and indeed many systems that humans depend on.”

Well, I mistook you for a soldier after hastily reading your cross post on the wet bulb in Iran at WU. Nonetheless, I looked up you blog-bio and agree with you 110% (apologies for the poor math). What a fortuitous stumble upon. Peace Robert.

Abel Adamski

A bit of potentially good news, marred by the bit at the end
“But he also foresees some obstacles.

“The carbon-intensive industries like coal and oil are making vast profits from the infrastructure that they have in place,” he said.

“They will be looking askance at this technology and thinking well is it something we can profit from or is it something that’s going to inhibit our profits.”

Professor Faunce had some advice for would-be competitors.

“Look at it carefully because this is something that if you invest in now would actually earn you vast profits, because think of what you could earn if the process had to go on of retro-engineering artificial photosynthesis and to all the structures on the surface of the Earth,” he said.

“There’s vast amounts of money made for the corporation prepared to take this challenge.”

The research is published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.”

Abel Adamski

Vast amounts of money to be made, from whom and where will it come from. ?
Drive the world into abject poverty for the benefit of some greedy evil creeps just to save our lives and futures of crippling poverty and suffering

– Localized and Regional Extremes:Tampa, FL has been awash in rainfall but a bit east conditions are a bit different.

‘Cuba on edge as drought worsens’

Cuba put its civil defense system on alert on Monday due to a year-long drought that is forecast to worsen in the coming months and has already damaged agriculture and left more than a million people relying on trucked-in water.
…
The country’s civil defense system said the drought, record heat and water leakage have led to “low levels of available water for the population, agriculture, industry and services.”

The government has not provided a national breakdown of drought damage but it said on Monday that emergency measures were being taken at all levels, including stricter rationing of water through the state-run waterworks.

Abel Adamski

At least they’re rationing. Sao Paulo’s experience with privatized water services shows that the water company will pump the lakes down before rationing. And then they’ll ration in a very hamfisted manner (i.e., no water for certain times of day; ?poorer areas get more rationing than the rich areas).

I remember… Normally a tropical storm will weaken as it passes over land. It relies on warm water and evaporation to driven its moist air convection engine. However, the soil in this case was so saturated that it was just as good as open waters in driving the moist air convection, and consequently the tropical storm remained at strength.

Similarly, a typhoon will normally weaken as it moves away from the equator. The water at depth is cooler, and the same Ekman pumping that can be involved in the creation of Kelvin waves feeding an El Nino by pushing warm water down will also bring up water from at depth, cooling the surface so that the typhoon runs out of fuel. But in the case of Haiyan the water at depth was still warm enough to fuel the typhoon.

A warmer environment that results in warmer water at depth or moister air and heavier rain over coastal land results in more intense storms and greater damage.

I’ll have to tell my wife that the conspiracies surrounding me now include the notion that I am the CIA. She’ll get a kick out of this. 3,512 pages on climate change written since 2012 (including Growth Shock). I feel like a team. But the team of commenters here certainly does help.

Thorium… I’ve heard talk of that since the 1970s and it still remains vaporware. Meanwhile, the cost of wind, solar, and batteries continues to fall…

Love. Absolutely, Eric. The kind of love it takes for people in power now to abandon their fossil fuel assets. The kind of love it takes for everyone to work together to find safe havens for those who are now most at risk. The kind of love it takes to prevent mass extinctions and to save species. The kind of love it takes to learn how to cooperate with the Earth’s natural systems rather than to destroy and dominate them. The kind of love it takes to recognize that pure competition is destructive and harmful and teaches all the wrong lessons. The kind of love it takes not to build bunkers, but to build a living world full of life granting civilizations. Not the death spreading ones we see today. Love enough not to consume other creatures for food. Love enough to not spend one’s life in search of ever-greater accumulations of wealth, but to spend it instead in search of ever-greater reductions of harm. Love to help the least powerful among us the most.

– I see evidence of plant enhancement via N quite a bit around PDX and Willamette Valley (All part of the I-5 interstate highway, and NAFTA, emissions corridor.
The subject should be a given.

– Ragweed pollen is only one allergen. NOX via FF emissions is everywhere and on the increase. It is strong indicator of overall FF aerosol pollution. Possibly, since so much is falling out of the atmosphere — some sort of saturation is likely taking place.
– Much aerosol pollution is composed of caustic debris. Most of this attaches to mucus membranes, etc. which degrades and damages our respiratory protective system. Invasive plants with, or without, pollens are dominating much of our current climate stressed (and N nutrient rich) landscape as well.

‘Air pollution increases allergenicity of ragweed pollen’
Nitrous oxide pumped out of cars from burning gas makes the plants more allergenic.
NEUHERBERG, Germany, Aug. 17 (UPI) — Exposure to nitrous oxide exhaust gases in the environment makes the common ragweed pollen more allergenic, according to new research.
Pollen allergies affect about 50 million people in the United States, and are the main cause of hay fever and other allergies.
“After studies have already shown that Ambrosia growing along highways is clearly more allergenic than Ambrosia plants growing away from road traffic…http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2015/08/17/Air-pollution-increases-allergenicity-of-ragweed-pollen/4711439820872/

– This, I called years ago – at least the air pollution aspect of our increases in dementias (Congress has its own version). The subject should be a given.
– Our brains operate on the flow of oxygen rich blood. Our blood gets its oxygen via our respiratory system breathing in the air of our atmosphere including toxic and neurotoxic particles, vapors and droplets. Pollutants from the uses, and misuses, of fossil fuel are the main component of our ‘air pollution’. GHG, etc, are the lighter elements and go up onto the atmosphere..

– Further, in the USA (at least), we put many of our nursing, and convalescent, homes adjacent to ‘freeways’ and other traffic corridors. But then we do this with schools and hospitals too.

‘Why modern life is making dementia in your 40s more likely’
From background radiation to chemicals in the food chain, environmental changes are contributing to a rapid global rise in neurological disease
… Our first study, focusing on the changing pattern of neurological deaths from 1979 up to 1997, found that dementias were starting 10 years earlier – affecting more people in their 40s and 50s – and that there was a noticeable increase in neurological deaths in people up to the age of 74. In a follow-up study, taking us to 2010 and across 21 western countries, these increases were confirmed.
… Deaths of men over 75 have nearly trebled in 20 years and deaths of women have increased more than five-fold. For the first time since records began, more US women over 75 are dying of brain disease than cancer.
…
‘ In the past 20 years, we have quadrupled our road and air transport, with the inevitable increases in air pollution exposing us to a range of noxious substances…http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/07/modern-life-dementia-40s-neurological-disease?CMP=ema_565